MASTERPLAN FOR PONNERI SMART CITY READY: JICA

The proposed Smart City in Ponneri in north Chennai would be developed on 25,000 acres in three phases, according to the senior representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ichiguchi Tomohide.Talking to Express on the sidelines of the Global Investors Meet (GIM) here on Wednesday, Tomohide said the Ponneri Smart City project would be done in three stages.“In the first and second stages, a total of 4,500 acres would be converted into Smart City, and in the third stage we are targeting an area of 20,000 acres. The master plan is ready. We prepared it in July,” he said.

Ponneri in North Chennai is one of the three Smart Cities in Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor – the other two are at Vasant Narasapur, Tumkur, Karnataka and Krishnapatnam near Nellore in Andhra Pradesh.On investments in the Smart City, Tomohide said it was too early to comment. “The next stage is implementation and it will be dependent on cooperation from the Centre as well as the State. The masterplan would include industrial parks, residential areas besides commercial space,” he said.He also said that Chennai and Tamil Nadu were JICA’s priority regions because of the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor Framework and potential for Japanese investment.

To a query on whether JICA would fund the second phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project, Tomohide said they were yet to get the detailed project report.He also said that JICA was yet to receive any request for funding of extension of the first phase of Chennai Metro Rail project by 9 km from Washermanpet to Wimco Nagar in Tiruvottriyur.The priority projects for JICA were the 62.3 km Outer Ring Road, 129 km Chennai Peripheral Ring Road and 400 million litres per day desalination plant.